Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Comedian Charlie Hill, who grew up in Oneida and became a
groundbreaking influence for Native American comedians and other Native
Americans in the entertainment industry, died Monday. He was 62.

Hill attended the University of Wisconsin before moving
to California to pursue show business. He made his debut on “The Richard Pryor
Show” in 1977 and went on to become the first Native American comedian to be on
“The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

He was a regular at the famed Comedy Store in Los Angeles
and forged friendships that led to appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno,” and “Late Show with David Letterman” throughout his career. He also
wrote for the TV sitcom “Roseanne.”

Hill had been battling lymphoma, according to Indian
Country Today. News of his death sparked condolences and tributes on Twitter:

Funeral arrangements for Hill are pending with Ryan
Funeral Home & Crematory in De Pere.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Stage and screen actor Joseph Ruskin died of natural
causes at UCLA Santa Monica on December 28. He was 89.

Joe was a long serving actors' union member and officer.
In 1979 he became the first Western Regional Vice President of Actors Equity
Association, and was on the board of the Screen Actors Guild from 1976-1999
with eight of those years serving as 1st National Vice President. He was
honored for distinguished service by AEA with the Lucy Jordan Award in 2003 and
the Patrick Quinn Award in 2013, and by SAG with the Ralph Morgan Award in
2011.

Born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Joe attended High
School in Cleveland and enlisted in the Navy in 1942. He returned to study
drama at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University) and began his
professional career at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and the Rochester Arena Stage.
His list of 124 television credits include multiple appearance on such shows as
"Twilight Zone," "Star Trek," "Mission
Impossible" and "Alias." His 25 film appearances include
"The Magnificent Seven," "Prizzi's Honor," "Indecent
Proposal" and "Smokin' Aces." Over the years Joe always returned
to theatre, performing at the Mark Taper Forum, UCLA's Freud Playhouse, Theater
40 and his final appearance this year as a member of the Antaeus Theatre
Company.

Joe is survived by his wife Barbara Greene Ruskin;
daughter Alicia Ruskin and son-in-law Larry Bucklan; step-daughters Rachel
Greene and her husband Jim, Martha Greene and her son Jake, and Liza Page, her
husband Joe Page and their children Zoe and Eli; and brother and sister-in-law
David and Helene Schlafman and their children Daniel and Lani.

Plans for a memorial service are forthcoming, and in lieu
of flowers the family requests that donations be made to The Actor's Fund, the
SAG Foundation or the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

James Edgar Rodgers (Oct. 25,1934-Dec 16,2013) was born
in San Antonio, Texas, of parents, Gladys Duke and James E Rodgers, Sr. He
attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he played football for a
short time in the early 1950s.

From a stint in the military, Jim learned and spoke
Russian fluently before moving to Hollywood in the early 1960s where he owned
the Hollywood Free Press. During that time he also became an actor under the
stage name, Roger 'Jim' Gentry, a name that he used the rest of his life. He
appeared in many movies and TV shows during the 60s including Combat and Star
Trek.

Co-starring with John Carradine in one of that actor's
last movies called, 'The Wizard of Mars,' Jim also appeared in movies with
Rosie Greer, Ray Milland and many other actors. In later life he liked to show
people the SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) card which he received from then SAG
president, Ronald Reagan. See more at http://bit.ly/1dL8uQs.

He is preceded in death by most of his family including
his son, Lance. He is survived by his daughter, Karen Gentry, who continues to
live in Los Angeles. His family & friends invite those who knew him to a
memorial service at 10 am on January 4th at St. Philips Anglican Church, 1408
West 9th Street.

This is the actress Eugenia Avendaño, who was the voice
of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones.

Eugenia Avendaño was born in Mexico on October 4, 1930,
he worked in film, theater, and television dubbing. She was married to actor
Claudio Brook, with whom he had to Simone Brook, actress and singer who has
emerged as a figure of musical theater in Mexico.

Among the outstanding works of actress Eugenia Avendaño
are Bubú voice in "Yogi Bear", the Aunt Polly "The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer"; Lucero Sonic from "The Jetsons", Miss Heidi
Rotenmeier and grandmother in "Los Locos Adams".

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Comedy world pays tribute to agent whose clients included
scores of stars, including Jonathan Ross, Jack Dee and Jo Brand

Conal Urquhart

The Guardian

Tuesday 24 December 2013 13.30 GMT

Addison Cresswell, the comedy agent who represented many
well known stars including Lee Evans, Jack Dee and Jonathan Ross, has died at
the age of 53.

A spokesman said the agent and producer died in his sleep
at home on Sunday night. The spokesman said he is survived by his beloved wife,
Shelley, his dogs Bonnie and Nessie and many, many pet fish.

One of the most influential people in British comedy, Cresswell
– unlike many agents – liked to leave the limelight to the scores of stars he
represented.

He started his management company Off the Kerb 32 years
ago, working from his kitchen table after a period as entertainments officer at
Brighton Polytechnic, where he studied. Other clients included Jo Brand, Dara O
Briain and Alan Carr.

Many of the comedians he worked with spoke of their shock
and recalled the contribution he made to their careers, as well as his
extrovert personality.

Jon Plowman, the producer of scores of BBC comedies
including 2012 and Little Britain, said Cresswell had revolutionised British
comedy and launched and supported countless careers. "He had boundless
energy which was devoted to helping the careers of people he was enthusiastic
about. Lots of comedians owe their exposure to him. It's impossible to imagine
Lee Evans for example without Cresswell in the mix," he said."He was
one of the people who decided that comedy was going to be the new rock and roll
and he was determined to price it high to the TV channels and get big
audiences."

Jenny Eclair tweeted: "Stunned and shocked by news
of Addison Cresswell's death, he was there at the beginning for so many of us,
love to his family and friends."

Ash Atalla, who produced The Office, said: "The fact
that you once threatened to hit me will only make me miss you more. RIP'"

James Corden tweeted: "Such sad news about Addison
Cresswell. An incredible man. An incredible talent. May he rest in peace
x."

The spokesman said: "Addison will be fondly
remembered by all whose lives he touched as a devoted mentor, a dear friend and
an unforgettable character. He will be sorely missed.

"He leaves behind a proud legacy in his tireless
charity work, initiating and organising the annual Channel 4 Comedy Gala in aid
of Great Ormond Street hospital. It was his dearest wish to raise enough to
fund the opening of a brand new wing of the hospital, a goal that is now in
sight."

He was listed at number 68 in the Media Guardian 100 in
2010. He was described as: "Agent, producer and deal-maker extraordinaire,
Cresswell was responsible for Ross's infamous three-year contract with the BBC
worth almost £6m a year. Legend has it Cresswell was spotted celebrating the
deal burning money at the bar of Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms."

Cresswell preferred his stars to be in the spotlight
rather than himself although the BBC hoped he could rival Simon Cowell on a
projected talent show.

Cresswell also produced shows through his company, Open
Mike Productions, including a series starring Michael McIntyre, another of his
clients.

Cresswell once said: "I don't see us as in any way
different from the people who run the channels. They're complete bastards as
well, but we all have to work with each other."

Cresswell set up his first production company, Wonderdog
Productions, with Julian Clary and Paul Merton, and Clary's Channel 4 show
Sticky Moments was one of his first big hits.

Monday, December 23, 2013

He worked for years at MGM on such projects as TV's
"The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." and the 1972 film "The Wrath of
God."

Albert Wilson, a veteran film editor who worked for years
at MGM, died Dec. 12 in Los Angeles. He was 91.

Wilson worked on such TV series as The Girl From
U.N.C.L.E., Then Came Bronson, Kung Fu, Police Woman, The Dukes of Hazzard and
CHiPs and on such films as Corky and The Wrath of God, both released in 1972.

A native of Monticello, Miss., Wilson served in the U.S.
Army Air Force at the end of World War II, then studied at Southern Methodist
University and the University of Southern California.

Wilson, who lived in Manhattan Beach, was a longtime
member of the Academy of Motion Picture

Arts & Sciences, the American
Cinema Editors and the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

The star of the Hitchcock classics "Suspicion"
and "Rebecca" famously won an Oscar in 1942 over her bitter rival --
her older sister Olivia de Havilland.

Joan Fontaine, the polished actress who achieved stardom
in the early 1940s with memorable performances in the Alfred Hitchcock films
Suspicion — for which she earned the best actress Oscar over her bitter rival,
sister Olivia de Havilland — and Rebecca, has died. She was 96.

THR awards analyst Scott Feinberg spoke with the actress'
assistant, Susan Pfeiffer, who confirmed the death of natural causes Sunday at
Fontaine's home in Carmel, Calif.

Fontaine earned a third best actress Oscar nomination for
her role in The Constant Nymph (1943), She also was notable as Charlotte
Bronte's eponymous heroine in Jane Eyre (1944) opposite Orson Welles; in the
romantic thriller September Affair (1950) with Joseph Cotton; in Ivanhoe (1952)
with Robert Taylor; and in Island in the Sun (1957), where she plays a
high-society woman in love with an up-and-coming politician (Harry Belafonte).

It was Hitchcock, with his penchant for “cool blondes,”
who brought Fontaine to the forefront when he cast her as the second Mrs. de
Winter in Rebecca (1940), the director’s American debut. Her performance as the
new wife of Laurence Olivier in a household haunted by the death of his first
wife earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress.

A year later, Hitchcock placed her opposite Cary Grant in
Suspicion, and she won the Oscar for her turn as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth, a shy
English woman who begins to suspect her charming new husband of trying to kill
her. She thus became the only actor to win an Oscar in a Hitchcock film.

Among those Fontaine beat out at the 1942 Academy Awards
was her older sister de Havilland, up for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Biographer
Charles Higham wrote that as Fontaine came forward to accept her trophy, she
rejected de Havilland’s attempt to congratulate her and that de Havilland was
offended. The sisters, who never really got along since childhood, finally
stopped speaking to each other in the mid-’70s.

De Havilland, a two-time Oscar winner, is 97 and living
in Paris.

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo on Oct.
22, 1917, to British parents. Her father was a patent attorney who had a
thriving practice in Japan. Due to the ill health of her and Olivia, their
mother, Lilian, moved them to California and pushed them into acting.

While de Havilland pursued acting, Fontaine returned to
Tokyo and attended the American School. Ultimately, their parents divorced and
Fontaine returned to the U.S. at age 17 to live in San Jose, Calif. As de
Havilland was already having some success as an actress, Fontaine joined a
local theater group and moved to L.A.

She received a screen test at MGM and was given a bit
part in No More Ladies (1935), credited as Joan Burfield. After changing her
last name to Fontaine (from her stepfather, George Fontaine) to avoid confusion
with her sister, she signed with RKO and garnered small parts in several
movies, including The Women and Gunga Din, both released in 1939.

Capitalizing on her emotional turns in Rebecca and
Suspicion, Fontaine appeared in several romantic films in the ’40s, including
Constant Nymph (where she falls for composer Charles Boyer), Frenchman’s Creek
(1944), The Affairs of Susan (1945), From This Day Forward (1945) and Ivy
(1947).

Fontaine moved into more mature roles in the movies and starred
on Broadway opposite Anthony Perkins in Tea and Sympathy in 1954. Her last
movie appearance was in The Witches (1966).

Fontaine made regular TV appearances in the late ’50s and
early ’60s and served as a panelist on the game show To Tell the Truth from
1962-65. In 1986, she co-starred in the TV movie Dark Mansions and the
miniseries Crossings, and her last credited performance came in the 1994
telefilm Good King Wenceslas.

Fontaine was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1980 for her
guest-starring stint in the soap opera Ryan’s Hope and served as jury president
at the 1982 Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1978, she published her autobiography, No Bed of
Roses, which detailed her feud with de Havilland.

Off the screen, Fontaine was a licensed pilot, an
accomplished interior decorator and a Cordon Bleu-level chef who was married
and divorced four times. In the ‘40s, she and William Dozier, the second of her
four husbands, formed Rampart Productions, which oversaw her 1948 film Letter
From an Unknown Woman, Billy Wilder’s The Emperor Waltz (1948) starring Bing
Crosby and Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) with Burt Lancaster.

In 1939, Fontaine married British actor Brian Aherne, and
they divorced in 1945. She was married to Batman TV show producer Dozier from
1946-51, to producer Collier Young from 1952-61 and to journalist Alfred Wright
Jr. from 1964-69.

Tom Laughlin, the maverick actor and filmmaker best known
for the "Billy Jack" films, has died. He was 82.

Laughlin died Thursday in Thousand Oaks, his family
announced.

Laughlin had been married to actress Delores Taylor since
1954 and also had several ill-fated runs for president. But he was best known
for the "Billy Jack" films, which also starred Taylor. In 1967, he
wrote and directed (under the pseudonym T.C. Frank) and starred in "The
Born Losers," a motorcycle exploitation film that became a big box-office
hit. It introduced the world to the part-Native American Vietnam veteran title
character.

The 1971 sequel, the vigilante-themed "Billy
Jack," was, after a legal battle with studio Warner Bros., released
independently. It also became a box-office smash, though it generated
controversy for its suggestion of guns and violence as a justice-seeking tool.

Laughlin co-produced and starred in all four
"Jack" films, including the little-seen final one, 1977's "Billy
Jack Goes to Washington." The third film, "The Trial of Billy
Jack," was one of the first movies to get a major television and national
advertising push.

Laughlin was also known for his activism -- he started a
Montessori preschool and ran for president on three occasions. He had spoken in
recent years of trying to bring the Jack character back to the big screen.

Actor who shot to fame in David Lean's 1962 masterpiece
and received eight Oscar nominations has died in hospital in London

Robert Booth

The Guardian

Sunday 15 December 2013 17.58 GMT

The actor Peter O'Toole, who found stardom in David
Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia, has died aged 81, his agent has said.

The acclaimed leading man who overcame stomach cancer in
the 1970s passed away on Saturday at the Wellington hospital in London
following a long illness, Steve Kenis said.

O'Toole announced last year he was stopping acting
saying: "I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful
farewell."

He said his career on stage and screen fulfilled him
emotionally and financially, bringing him together "with fine people, good
companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and
hits."

Early in his career O'Toole became emblematic of a new breed
of hard-drinking Hollywood hellraiser.

"We heralded the '60s," he once said. "Me,
[Richard] Burton, Richard Harris; we did in public what everyone else did in
private then, and does for show now. We drank in public, we knew about
pot."

Last month it was reported he had been coaxed out of
retirement to act in a film about ancient Rome called Katherine of Alexandria
in which he would play Cornelius Gallus, a palace orator.

O'Toole is believed to have been born in Connemara in
County Galway in Ireland, and lived in London. He shot to stardom in the 1962
film of TE Lawrence's life story and went on to star in Goodbye Mr Chips, The
Ruling Class, The Stunt Man and My Favourite Year. He received an honorary
Oscar in 2003 after receiving eight nominations and no wins - an unassailed
record.

He is survived by his two daughters, Pat and Kate
O'Toole, from his marriage to actress Siân Phillips, and his son, Lorcan
O'Toole, by Karen Brown.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

A star of Turkish cinema who appeared in cinemas,
theaters in a range of characters died as a result of heart failure. Featured
in Victory, Önen died at the age of 92 after a six month stay in a
rehabilitation center in Pendik

Featured in the film Victory, Zafer was born in 1921 in
Çorum. Onen, in 1941, entered the Music Department of the Ankara State Opera.
In 1943, at the Theatre of Sound "Air Mercury" operetta where he
began acting career with Muammer Karaca, at the Istanbul City Theatre. At the
Theatre he starred in many plays performed in theaters such as "Lüküs
Life", " Şöminedeki Ceset", “Cibali Karakolu". He went on
to appear in many movies, TV series and advertising commericals.

Audrey Totter, 95, a blond leading lady of 1940s film
noir who starred as a tough-talking dame in "Lady in the Lake,"
"The Set-Up" and "High Wall," died Thursday at West Hills
Hospital, said her daughter, Mea Lane. Totter, a Woodland Hills resident, had a
stroke and suffered from congestive heart failure.

Although she had a relatively short film career, Totter
created memorable movie moments while under contract with MGM from 1944 to the
early '50s. A former radio actress, she had a small part in "The Postman
Always Rings Twice," the 1946 movie based on James M. Cain's pulp novel.
She landed her breakthrough role in "Lady in the Lake," the 1947 film
version of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe detective story that Robert Montgomery
directed and starred in. She also appeared opposite Claude Rains in the 1947
thriller "The Unsuspected," acted with Robert Taylor in "High
Wall" (1947), starred in Robert Wise's 1949 gritty boxing drama "The
Set-Up" and snarled her way through "Tension" (1949).

"The bad girls were so much fun to play,"
Totter told the New York Times in 1999.

But in 1952 Totter put aside her performing career to
focus on her family, marrying Dr. Leo Fred, who taught at the UCLA School of
Medicine, and giving birth to her daughter. Totter later returned to acting,
mainly on television, with recurring roles on "Our Man Higgins,"
"Dr. Kildare" and "Medical Center" and guest spots on
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Perry Mason," "Hawaii
Five-O," "Murder, She Wrote" and other series.

Totter was born in Joliet, Ill., on Dec. 20, 1917,
according to her daughter, and began acting in the '30s in radio dramas.

After her husband died in 1995 and movie buffs
rediscovered her film noir scenes on video and cable TV, Totter said she began
receiving job offers.

"What could I play?" she said in a 2000
interview with the Toronto Star. "A nice grandmother? Boring! Critics
always said I acted best with a gun in my hand."

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The director Glauco Mirko Laurelli died in São Paulo, on
Wednesday December 11 at the age of 83. He directed five films, four of them
for comedian Amácio Mazzaropi. His last and most important work was in the film
“The Moreninha” (1970), reviewed here in BRCine recently.

With friend and filmmaker Luis Sérgio Person, Laurelli
Lauper founded the Movies (which carries the initials of their last names) in
the late 1960s. Apart from films, Lauper also produced commercials. Laurelli
also worked with theater shows.

To Mazzaropi, Laurelli directed the films “O Vendedor de
Linguiças” (1962), “Casinha Pequena” (63), “O Lamparina” (63) “Meu Japão
Brasileiro” (64). In film, Laurelli began acting as assistant choreographer in
the early 1950s. He was also a film editor, assistant director and scriptwriter.

Louis Waldon, an actor who appeared in several Andy Warhol films including "Lonesome Cowboys" and "Blue Movie," which the authorities seized for obscenity shortly after it was released, died on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 78.

The cause was complications of strokes, JoAnne Maite, a friend, said.

Mr. Waldon was a rare Warhol Superstar, as members of his stock company were known, because he had acting experience. Warhol recruited him after seeing him in Edward Albee's "Ballad of the Sad Cafe" on Broadway in the early 1960s.

Mr. Waldon appeared with the actress Viva in the Warhol films "The Nude Restaurant" (1967), a series of random conversations carried on between almost-naked waiters, waitresses and restaurant patrons; and "Lonesome Cowboys" (1968), a homoerotic Western.

"Blue Movie," which included scenes of Mr. Waldon and Viva having sex, appeared briefly at the Andy Warhol Garrick Theater in 1969 before censors removed it and fined the theater's manager. A program note said it was "about the Vietnam war and what we can do about it."

In a review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote: "It opens with a medium close-up of Viva, looking rather more fit than usual (and sometimes even beautiful), and Louis Waldon, a pleasant, stocky, 30-ish man, fully clothed, wrestling on a bed. Without too much hesitation they make love, then talk a great deal, have some hamburgers, talk, take a shower - all of which, of course, dramatizes what we can do about Vietnam."

Louis Willard Waldon was born on Dec. 16, 1934, in Modesto, Calif. He graduated from Modesto High School and took drama classes in junior college.

In 1962 he appeared in the Off Broadway opening of Arthur L. Kopit's play, "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad." In 1968 he appeared in the Warhol films "Flesh" and "San Diego Surf," then moved to Europe to act in movies.

Mr. Waldon is survived by two sons, Scott and Barry; a daughter, Janet Patterson; two sisters, Shirley Anderson and JoAnne Lewis; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Many former Superstars contend that Warhol did not compensate them adequately. Mr. Waldon found a way to profit from his association with Warhol by making and selling silk screens of Warhol's classic images.

Warhol would have understood, Mr. Waldon told The Los Angeles Times in 2002.

"He certainly wouldn't stand in your way," he said. "If you could make any money on your own with Andy, he never said a word."

Don Mitchell, 70, an actor best known for his regular
role on the original "Ironside" series, died in Encino on Sunday of
natural causes. He played Mark Sanger, the aide and bodyguard to Raymond Burr's
wheelchair-using title character, in the NBC drama that ran from 1967 to 1975.
He reprised the role in the made-for-TV reunion film in 1993.

In 1972, Mitchell married actress Judy Pace. They
officially divorced in 1986. He and Pace have two daughters. An actress Julia
Pace Mitchell, who currently appears on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young
and the Restless, and an Attorney, Shawn Meshelle Mitchell.

From 1969 to 1970, Mitchell was married to the model
Emilie Blake, with whom he had a daughter, Dawn Mitchell.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Eleanor Parker, Oscar-nominated actress and baroness in
‘Sound of Music,’ dies at 91

The Washington Post

By Adam Bernstein

Monday, December 9, 3:16 PM

Eleanor Parker, an actress of patrician beauty nicknamed
“the woman of a thousand faces” for the range of parts she played, from a
terrified prisoner in “Caged” to the icy baroness in “The Sound of Music,” died
Dec. 9 at a medical facility near her home in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 91.

The cause was complications from pneumonia, a family
friend, Richard Gale, told the Associated Press.

Ms. Parker was nominated three times for an Academy
Award. But if she is not remembered with the instant recall of a Bette Davis or
Joan Crawford, it may be because she was not entirely comfortable with
film-star stereotyping.

“I'm primarily a character actress,” she told the Toronto
Star in 1988. “I've portrayed so many diverse individuals on the screen that my
own personality never emerged.”

In more than 45 films, she often used wigs, makeup and
convincing accents to play characters who were sad, flawed or downright
despicable.

A ravishing brunette, then blond and later a redhead with
a husky, sultry voice, she exuded sex appeal in such films as “Pride of the
Marines” (1945) with John Garfield, “Scaramouche” (1952) with Stewart Granger,
and “Escape From Fort Bravo” (1953) with William Holden.

In “The Naked Jungle” (1954), she is the mail-order bride
who intimidates a virginal South American plantation owner (Charlton Heston)
with sex-charged repartee.

“The piano you're sitting at was never played before you
came here,” Heston says at one point.

“If you knew more about music,” she says, “you'd know
that a piano is better when it's played.”

She was the sluttish waitress Mildred Rogers in a remake
of “Of Human Bondage” (1946), winning raves even if the film tanked. In “The
Man With the Golden Arm” (1955), she played the needy and ultimately deceitful
wife of a former drug addict (Frank Sinatra) struggling to stay clean.

One of her most heralded but least seen performances was
in “Lizzie” (1957), a film about a woman with multiple personalities. The movie
had the misfortune of being released the same year as “The Three Faces of Eve,”
which was heavily promoted to advance the career of newcomer Joanne Woodward.

Still, “Lizzie” remained a powerful and convincing
portrayal of three separate identities in one body — a pathologically shy
museum worker, a lusty barfly and a well-adjusted woman.

Instead of relying on film-editing tricks, Ms. Parker
showed subtle but convincing shifts in character in view of the camera. The
movie critic Judith Crist once called “Lizzie” a “neglected but fascinating”
film that “boasts a stunning performance” by Ms. Parker.

To play the polio-stricken opera singer Marjorie Lawrence
in “Interrupted Melody” (1955), Ms. Parker had to memorize 22 arias in 10 days.
She locked herself in mountain cabin to do it. Although the soundtrack did not
feature her voice — soprano Eileen Farrell dubbed the vocals — Ms. Parker
needed to mimic convincingly in a foreign tongue. She said later she had no
idea what she was singing.

Eleanor Jean Parker was born June 26, 1922, in
Cedarville, Ohio, and raised in Cleveland Heights. She was a veteran stage
actress by her late teens and turned down early screen test offers, once to
finish high school and another time to study at the Pasadena Playhouse in
California.

She then signed with Warner Bros. and served her
apprenticeship in low-budget crime and suspense films. Gradually, she won
ingenue parts in major productions, including Michael Curtiz's “Mission to
Moscow” (1943) starring Walter Huston.

She became a leading lady as the wife of crippled concert
pianist (Paul Henreid) in “Between Two Worlds” (1944) and “Pride of the
Marines” (1945), as the wife of a blinded World War II hero (Garfield).

In 1950, she starred in “Caged,” for which she received
her first Academy Award nomination as best leading actress. She played a woman
unjustly sent to prison, where she is abused by a prison matron and hardens to
the environment.

Her second Oscar nomination, for best supporting actress,
came the next year in “Detective Story.” In the film, she harbors a secret that
may destroy her husband, a crusading policeman (Kirk Douglas).

Her final nomination, as best actress, came for
“Interrupted Melody” (1955).

Director Robert Wise, who had worked with her on the film
“Three Secrets” (1950) and admired her portrayal of cool reserve, cast her as
Baroness Elsa Schraeder in “The Sound of Music” (1965), one of the biggest film
successes of all time.

She also worked in television, winning the 1963 Emmy
Award for outstanding single performance by an actress on the medical drama
“The Eleventh Hour.” She played a woman whose fear of men leads her to drink
and hallucinations.

Onstage, she replaced Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing in
the touring company of “Applause,” based on “All About Eve,” the celebrated
Bette Davis movie about theater people and ambition.

Richard L. Coe, reviewing the show in 1972 for The
Washington Post, wrote of Ms. Parker that her intelligence and discipline
proved “a deeper revelation than Miss Bacall’s original achieved.”

Perhaps the greatest notice of all came years earlier,
when a gossip columnist did not even recognize the versatile actress when she
dined out. “Who was that attractive girl with Eleanor Parker's husband last
night?” the columnist wrote.

Her marriages to Dr. Fred Losee, businessman Bert
Friedlob and portrait painter Paul Clemens ended in divorce. Her fourth
husband, businessman Raymond Hirsch, whom she married in 1966, died in 2001. A
complete list of survivors could not be immediately confirmed.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Actress Kate Williamson, whose extensive credits include
a run on the Ellen DeGeneres comedy "Ellen," died Friday night after
a period of failing health.

Williamson's death comes mere weeks after the death of
her husband, actor Al Ruscio, who died at age 89 on Nov. 12.

The actress died surrounded by her four children at her
Encino, Calif., home.

Born Robina Jane Sparks to actress/singer Nydia Westman
and producer/writer Salathiel Robert Sparks, Williamson's decades-long acting
career included the 1994 Barry Levinson film "Disclosure,"the 2002 film "Dahmer," which
starred Jeremy Renner as cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and the
1993 James Spader film "Dream Lover."

On the television side, Williamson appeared on
"Falcon Crest," "Beauty and the Beast," "Murder, She
Wrote," "JAG" and "7th Heaven," among many more.

Willliamson and Ruscio married in 1954, and had four
children together — actress and poet Elizabeth Ruscio, director and editor
Michael Ruscio, production designer Nina Ruscio and teacher Maria Ruscio.

Judy Fox, who managed both Williamson and Ruscio,
remembers Williamson as a "lovely character actress, like Al." Fox
told TheWrap that the pair "have raised a remarkably talented family. A
wonderful legacy.No doubt Kate and Al
are together, dancing in the heavens & free at last from debilitating
illnesses."

Friday, December 6, 2013

Film and TV actor Larry Pennell died on August 28, 2013,
place unknown. Born Lawrence Keneth Pennell on February 2, 1928 in Uniontown,
Pennsylvania. Before becoming an actor he was a professional baseball player
for the Boston Braves [1948-1953]. He then drifted into acting appearing in
several films before he was given the lead in the 1961-1963 TV series ‘Ripcord’
about skydivers. He made his most lasting impression on the TV series, ‘The
Beverly Hillbillies” as Elly May’s boyfriend Dash Riprock. His career continued
with small parts in films and television including “Mr. Baseball” (1992) with
Tom Selleck. His last film appearance was in “The Passing” (2011).

Monday, December 2, 2013

His taste in music and his British accent won him much
sympathy : Chris Howland aka "Mr. Pumpernickel " was one of the most
popular radio and TV presenters in Germany. Now he has died at the age of 85
years.

Hamburg / Cologne - He was the most famous Englishman on
German television: The actor , presenter and entertainer Chris Howland is dead
This was confirmed by a spokesman for the West German Radio (WDR) in Cologne.
Howland died at the age of 85 years at his home in Rösrath near Cologne.

Howland came in 1946 as a gunner into occupied Germany.
After the war he worked as a radio announcer in the British Army. Soon he had a
large following in the German population. So he got his own show at the former
North West German Broadcasting NWDR. From this initial period, his nickname was
"Mr. Pumpernickel". His German audience he stood like before as

"Heinrich Pumpernickel".

Howland became famous as host of "gimmicks with
records", but especially with his TV show

"caution Camera". In 1959 he moved for two
years back in his home country. There, however, he never achieved the fame he
had in Germany.

The London-born played - mostly as a quirky supporting
cast - in many films with, including Karl May movies and in the Edgar Wallace
series. Most recently he was seen on the side of Oliver lime kiln and Bastian
Pastewka in the movie parody "Neues vom Wixxer" in the cinema.

"The term ' legend ' is often used and much too
often, but Chris Howland was really a " explained

About Me

Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1946 I have a BA degree in American History from Cal St. Northridge. I've been researching the American West and western films since the early 1980s and visiting filming sites in Spain and the U.S.A. Elected a member of the Spaghetti Western Hall of Fame 2010.